Club Night 27th April

Woff is coming soon and I will make a return. As it is doubles I am being joined by Ed with his Chaos Warriors to fight alongside my Beastmen. We thought we ought to try and get at least one practice game in and Duncan and Mike agreed to take us on with Daemons and Ogres. Against this we had two really big blocks of Marauders, with a supporting unit of Chaos Warriors and a Hellcannon. My Beastmen to provided smaller supporting units for impact hits from the chariots and flank protectors and war machine killers with smaller units, warhounds and harpies.

It was a very good game, the armies worked exactly as hoped, we had a little luck and did serious damage to our opponents and won. This is quite an achievement as I can not remember the last time I beat Duncan at warhammer as he is a very astute player so hopefully this bodes well for the tournament.

WOFF XII

After the club AGM, which I won't bore you with the details here, it was off to Portsmouth for the latest WOFF (Wargamers out for fun) Warhammer tournament. After a great night at the Wedgewood rooms, Daz and I prepared to combat hangovers and all comers, and for me to try and learn a little from Daz and finish higher than bottom!

We took a Beastmen and Slaanesh Daemon army. With the Minotaurs and the Bestigors we had the hitting and the Fiends and Seekers gave us some speed. Our real trick was our herald with Great Icon of Despair and the Masque giving us a potential of -5Ld on a unit.

Day1

Game 1, vs Steve (Wood Elf) & Big Ron (Bretonnian) 2095 to 526

Steve has a Treeman and Ron blocks of knights. We were less worried by the knights than the Treeman as we had nothing with the hitting power to deal with. As it transpired we crashed through the centre with our main blocks and rolled up the flanks with fast troops, the Icon of Despair and Masque icon working perfectly. And in the end they put pay to the Treeman, the last unit alive we charged it from two directions, won the melee, but with a modified Ld of 3 being stubborn did not help it and we run it down for a decisive victory.

Game 2, vs Kev (Slaanesh Warriors of Chaos) & Colin (Dark Elf) 1554 to 1426With a centre piece of a chaos war shrine (unfortunately the picture didn't come out) and the cauldron of blood (above), Kev and Colin's army looked beautiful, and was going to cause us problems as they are very astute and capable players. However a hard fought game where we could not get to grips successfully with their chosen, while we protected out core and won the flanks, meant we had a draw at the end, a result I was very please with.

Game 3, vs Dave P (Dark Elf) & Dave H (Tzeentch Warriors of Chaos) 1190 to 1606

The final game of the day was against the two Daves. Dave P is a very smart player and Dave H has massive tournament experience so we would have to be careful. As it turned out the army played well and everything went to plan. With one exception... The hellcannon didn't fire a shot all game but did munch through a lot of our army while we could do little to slow it down, giving a victory to the Daves, but scoring a respectable tally for ourselves.

The evening was for the young people, Chris D and I could not keep the pace so had a quiet night with QI, but it meant I was refreshed and ready to go for Sunday.

Day 2

Game 4, vs Pete (Dark Elf) & Chris M (Vampire Counts) 1287 to 1290

Our first game was always going to be tough, again our opponents our top players who really know their armies. In addition I always struggle against Chris' undead. But again we maneuvered and avoid the units we could not manage, picked our fights and made sure we won then and again managed a high scoring draw.

Game 5, vs Jay (Ogres) & Dave S (Daemon) 2198 to 304

Our final game saw us take on Jay and Dave S with Ogres and Daemons. With a large unit of Fleshhounds this was going to be a tough proposition. Fortunately things went our way and we again used our speed to roll up the flanks, broke the Ogres and the big blocks of horrors, and then made hard work of the Fleshhounds but managed to grind our way through them rather than sweep them away.

Results

Finishing 2nd was my best result at a WOFF and I both enjoyed and learnt a lot form playing with Daz. Now I just need to make sure I remember it all.

WOFF 15

After Arsuf was over, I drove down to Pompey for WOFF 15. I took 1999 points of Kislev, and it did not go well. I lost every game! I could not pass a Leadership test, make a save or get any luck. My closest games where against Luke's Orcs and Goblins and Dave P Dark Elves, which surprised me a little, as I usually struggle against Dave as he is a vary astute player.

My worse game by far was against Darren's High Elves. Always a tough opponent, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but Darren got the first turn, destroyed two units of horse archers with his bolt shooters, causing panic amongst my other archers, and removing half my army from the table before it had even moved. Defeat shortly followed! To add insult to injury, the game was over so quickly, Darren and I swapped sides, and with my Kislev army, got the first turn and proved that my plan was sound, but thoroughly thrashing the High Elves under my command.

Among the better looking items I saw was the painted version of the battle standard I had converted Rik when I stayed down for a couple of days after Luke's Birthday. This is Wolfric's body, with arms and heads from the warriors and the knights box sets. Simple but effective.

The other good looking army was Ryan's Roman Empire army. Built from Warlord games plastics it looked beautiful and the tortoise counting as a steam tank was very clever. He also did quite well with them!

Club Night 30th October

A quick entry as I try to catch up! Luke and I played a practice game against each other in preparation for WOFF 15. 1750 points of Goblins faced off against my Kislev army and I won, but not until after a few hairy moments!

The following weekend I assembled the rest of the Kislev figures I needed (Empire knights had been standing in!) and finished two bases of Teutonic Knights for the show game. Now I just need to get all the rest painted!

Warlords Double Tournemant 11th October

On Sunday I headed down to the new shop in Brighton, Wargames Heaven, for Brighton warlords annual doubles tournament. This will be my third year attending, but the first year it has been held in the shop. Located in the Imperial Arcade where many years ago a toy shop used to be. It has a varied stock of products, mostly GW and FOW, but also some Perry and Warlords games as well as other bits and pieces. They also have the full range of Vallejo paints, including model air which I will be getting from there in the future. But this Sunday it was up in the gaming area with Matt as my partner and ready to play some Warhammer.

Our army is pictured here, from left to right, 20 High Elf spearmen, 10 High Elf archers, 5 Dragon Knights, an elven noble with battle standard, Warrior Priest of Sigmar, 5 Empire Knight, 15 Greatswords with detachments of 5 archers and 6 halberdiers, 10 Empire swordsman, 10 handgunners.

Game 1 matched against Grant and Vaughan with Chaos and Dark Elves. This army was a proper tournament list, with the main elements being a frenzied Khornate lord on a massive jugger with the helm of many eyes and the blasphemous amulet, a dark elf noble on a chariot with a 1+ save and the crimson death and a war hydra. And we lost! My knight charged the hydra and won, but it passed its break test and then eat the survivors, the dragon knights charged the chaos knights and the Khornate hero. Despite my use of Van hostmens speculum with my Warrior priest I was slain and our Battle Banner only added 1 to our combat resolution, so we broke and where run down. After that it was just a matter of time. 126vps vs 2497vp meant we were massacred.

Game 2 was against Rik and Jamie with their double chaos army (spotting a chaos theme here, was definitely the army that featured most, followed by dark elves). It stated bad from the off-set, they got the 11 roll on the eye of the gods for their chosen, upped to 12, giving them a 4+ Ward save going up to 3+ with their mark of Tzeentch. By the time the war shrine had given them +1 attack in addition to their banner of rage meant this was an awesome unit we wre going to struggle to take. Under that is exactly what we did, after the dragon princes had fled from a terror causing unit they where trying to charge, and my knights bounced from the uber chosen of doom it was just a case of adding up points. 192vps to 2497vps and we had been massacred again.

Game 3 followed a lunch break where Matt and I reconsidered our plans! We came up against Steve with a pure Orc army, not a gobbo in sight! He was paired with his brother Tony using a beast army made up of Fimir models. This army was quite unique looking and a really beautiful idea. This time Matt and I continued with our usual plan of the infantry in the centre and the cavalry on the flanks, but placed both our heroes in the greatswords to make a really tough unit. And it worked, my knights took out the minotaurs and a herd. Although the dragon knights got caught by the chariot after killing the bestigors, the spearmen behind them took it out, while the greatswords and the heroes munched their way through the Orcs in the centre. With 2395vps scored against 468vps we had finally managed not only to not get massacred, but to inflict one of our own.

Game 4 was against Dan with High elves and Chris with Wood elves. White lines of chrace and a tree man where going to cause us some problems, but again our heroes joined the greatswords and we began our advance. The Dragon knights gain where not successful, but they draw a great deal of bow fire that could have been directed elsewhere. My knights took out the dryads and overran them. In the centre the hochland long rifle and my archers kept a continual fire in the general direction of the elf mage and kept her ducking for cover. A slight mistake from Chris' tree signing moved the wood with its white lion contents to a position where we could charge ti in the flank with our greatswords which after a few turns against the stubborn lions finally broke them. To finish off the game despite the use of two dispel scrolls to stop my prayers of sigmar int he final turn i got off my first and only prayer of the day and used soulfire on the wood elf archers. After the best game of the day we totted up the point and we had narrowly lost and had so much fun I didn't write down the scores!

Although Matt and I didn't place as we expected after our first two games we had a good day and where the only one of our three teams not to win a prize. Rik and Jamie got best army
and Chris and Pete look very disinterested as they only place 3rd!

Mighty Empires Border Patrol

Sunday saw a group of us combine a quick Border Patrol tourney with a Mighty empires campaign to make it a bit more fun. I ran a Mighty Empires about a year ago so it was already to go, we set up a map, put down 5 capitals and picked 500 point Border Patrol armies.

The Mighty Empires part followed the 'guidelines' in the box, with a few additions, mostly the addition of some Might Empire cards I made, which are inspired by a number of sources, but can give bonuses on the battlefield, campaign map, or hamper others. The target was to get 10 territories or remove someone's last flag from the map. AS there was 5 of us, we agreed we would randomly pair off, and then rotate around so we all played each other and then repeat. As one person would always not be playing that player automatically got 2 empire points.

Rik put down an Empire forces, Chris a High Elf force (we let Chris have 2 specials rather than 1 due to the change in the High Elf lists since the original Border patrol rules came out), Ryan took Khornate Daemons, Joe took Dark Elves and I took Slaanesh Daemons.

I sat out the first round, in the second I took on Joe and everything went very nearly according to plan for a change and I got a massacre result. Having played an 'All or Nothing' empire card this enabled me to capture huge swathes of territory and take an early lead.

Next up was the Empire, using my speed I picked my fights and was aided by Rik's inability to pass a fear or break test, I quickly cleared them away for another massacre. With Ryan chalking up his third massacre, it was looking like a battle between the two of us.

With Ryan sitting out this round, I had a great chance to take a lead, but had to come up against Chris, who I have only ever beaten once, at that was at 40k. And is still the case. He laughed off my fear causing, and peppered me with arrows, helped by my inability to make ward save.

Ryan's Daemons came up next. While I reinforced my army with some more Daemonettes, he added a beast of Nurgle as we lined up for the Chaotic showdown. And it was pretty even until right at the death, where he gained the upper hand in the struggle between his herald and Bloodletters and my Deamonettes, and the ability to regenerate kept his Beast going long enough to wear down the Masque. With all my army wiped out, adding General, tale quarters and standards to Ryan's tally, he scored a massacre, but I was pretty pleased with my performance.

Consulting the campaign map, Ryan now had 10 territories, while I was second with 8. All Ryan needed to be doing was till holding them after the next round of battle sand map moves. Ryan took on Chris and his High Elves, while I faced off against the Empire again. Worryingly the Khornate Daemons finished off the High Elves quickly while I was making hard work of the Empire. I had to push the Empire right off their base line to finally wipe them out, but it was much harder than the first meeting. So Ryan and I both scored massacres and now needed to consult the map. Although I was able to push into Ryan's territories , he expanded the opposite side from me and had 12at the end, while I only clocked in at 9. The Empire under Rik and Joe's Dark Elves came in joint 3rd, and the High Elves bought up the rear, suffering from being caught between the two Daemon territories and get pushed in from both sides.

A great fun weekend, that has almost inspired me to get my Deamons finished, only almost because the horse arrived from Essex today, so I am preparing this new mounts for the Oddzial Osmy figures and will then be painting Poles Teutons and Lithuanians.